No, take notice they did not do 600 iterations. The CPU added 174 iterations during this run, which significantly helped.

I'm not going to lie.  This thread is so confusing.  Just render the scene and tell us how long it took and what the setup was.  Shesh.

Perhaps they did not know it was on? I don't know. It got my attention because that time is like my 2x 1080tis, so I knew something had to be fishy as there is no way 2x 1070ti should match that. Then I saw the line with the CPU. This is actually pretty interesting because most of the time the CPU does't add much to Iray. But in this case whatever CPU it is did quite a bit of work and made a big impact on the final time.

Most of the people would even go as far as saying buying a top end CPU is a waste if you are doing Iray with GPU. This might suggest otherwise.

So what kind of CPU are you using there, EBF2003? Is this a new AMD Ryzen?

Can't quote exact gospel/verse on it at the moment, but if you go and read Iray's official documentation on how it handles load balancing, it has a mechanism where if a single Cuda device out of multiple active Cuda devices during a Photoreal render takes significantly longer than the others to transmit its assigned portion of converged pixels back for inclusion in the central framebuffer, Iray's scheduler assumes that something is wrong with that device and automatically RE-assigns it's current workload to the other Cuda devices in the system. What this effectively means is that once you get beyond a certain rendering performance difference between your CPU and GPU(s), Rendering WITH your CPU results in WORSE overall rendering performance than without since - unbeknownst to you (there is never any indication of any of this in the log file) your fast GPUs are constantly being tasked with double processing data that your CPU is already processing. Hence why EB2003 gets BETTER performance with his Xeon + 1070s. Whereas I, with my 8700K + Titan RTX, get WORSE performance with CPU also enabled.

Interesting, there are certainly advantages and disadvantages of choosing a certain narrator type. One can obviously be the tense (past, present) another, has you mentioned is the availability of information about the events that happened.

Some murder mystery novels purposefully choose to keep the reader in the dark about events so that it unravels just as the detective experiences in the novel or dramatisation. I suppose this helps immerse you in their world.

The film 'Snake Eyes' did this perfectly, where Nicholas Cage has to interview different people to get their perspective of a crime that happened during a boxing match. Each person saw it from a different perspective and each time they tell the story, you are shown the events again, but this time from a different viewpoint, thus, little by little the truth about what happens begins building up. Rashomon is a great example, and a great film.

This sort of perspective is very important to mysteries. Without the perspective (usually from the narrator being a character, often the person solving the crime itself) the mystery genre might not even be possible.

Yeah, the narrator really makes or breaks the story in many ways. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, everything is told through the eyes of John Watson. But in the movies they can break this conceit and skip to show us directly what Holmes is doing. I would think that adapting Watson's viewpoint would be one of the hardest things to do when converting the material to a movie because, well... we NEED Watson to humanize Holmes. Holmes is a dick. A major dick, if we're honest. But, having Watson there helps soften Sherlock's rough points.

Y'know, this limited-first-person narrator is essential when the narrator is a character in the story. I can't think of a single story by H.P. Lovecraft where the narrator is not the central focus and voice (poetry doesn't count here, not even the narrative poetry). An amusing thought just crossed my mind. Can you imagine how bad those stories would have been if they had been written by Ernest Hemingway? I shudder to think of that kind of horror! :-)

Snake Eyes, eh? I haven't seen it. I'm hesitant to do so because I typically do not like Nicholas Cage movies. Nothing against him as an actor, really. I don't think he's great but I don't think he's horrible. It's just that he tends to make movies that I don't particularly enjoy. However, it is free on Amazon Prime Video, so I might watch it. I just watched the trailer and it looks to be okay. If we watch it I'll let you know what I think.

Referencing material at a site called tardisbuilders.com, I've improved the proportions and scale of my old Tom Baker console Poser based prop. I also took the opportunity to modify the mapping. When I released it around 2004, the UVs for the readout display were upside down, meaning any graphic had to be spun 180 degrees to properly display. I could have left it at that one correction, but I wound up tweaking just about every surface, spending several hours Saturday and Sunday doing so.
I also corrected the height of the hat stand (can't recall where I got it) and I adjusted the size of a rigged K-9 figure (by Dodger) to have a 30 inch length base. Funny enough, I did NOT have to resize CastIronFlamingo's control room. The builder's forum reveal the main entrance doors stand 84 inches (7 feet) and they were already that height.
The big divergence from the real life set is the inclusion of the suspended hexagon array. That was an element from the early Hartnell serials, but was eventually discarded. The geometry came from a model my Richard Marklew. And the central column is one Aldemp made specifically to replace the admittedly mediocre one I originally supplied with my prop.
Oh, we are looking through the main entrance framed by the distinctive zigzag doorway. The overall arrangement is inspired (meaning I've acknowledged some "liberties") by the layout of Tom Baker's final year and Peter Davison's first.
Sincerely,
Bill

So my wife is 7 months pregnant with our 4th child. This far along means that sleep is quite difficult for her and by extension me. Because of the sleep deprivation and impending deadline of not being able to work on projects at my leisure, I foolheartedly claimed that I could do a demonstration of 3D animation for the local filmmaker group that I am a member of – Nebraska Independent Film Projects (NIFP).

In my sleepless haze, I thought to myself wouldn’t it be fun to live stream this crazy idea as if it were a cooking show and have the audience choose the character the actor would morph into as the “secret ingredient”?  Why not!!? After all, I have 90 minutes of meeting time to fill!

I have managed to convince a few other deranged individuals to go along with this crazy plan and now we are going to live stream this on our NIFP Facebook page on Aug 15th 2019 starting at 6:30pm Central Time.

Please join us through our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/nifp.org/ to see if it ends in triumph or tears! I for one am hoping for both!

• Use FaceGen Artist Pro to create a 3D digital stunt double
• Capture motions using a Kinect 2 and Brekel Pro Body v2
• Convert .BVH file from Brekel Pro Body 2 to aniblock for Genesis 3 figure
• Capture a sentence or two of dialogue
• Apply lip sync to the animation using AniLip 2
• Apply the chosen secret ingredient morph the character
• Add an appropriate background to the scene
• Decide what if any “extra” details (proper Iray lights, blinking and eye movement, and emotional expressions) can be added in the final minutes
• Begin the render in Daz Studio to have a completed animation within 24 hours

.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

I use reverse phsychology; there is always another sale, and any item will get cheaper.

Or unavailable...

Either way, I save cash. None of it I actually need.

No, I think almost everyone who have been at this for a few years already have a lot more than they need (what they want is a different story).

.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

I use reverse phsychology; there is always another sale, and any item will get cheaper.

Or unavailable...

Either way, I save cash. None of it I actually need.

.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

I use reverse phsychology; there is always another sale, and any item will get cheaper.

Or unavailable...

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

I use reverse phsychology; there is always another sale, and any item will get cheaper.

Decluttering today.  No, not decluttering.  Procrastinating about decluttering, that's what I'm really doing right now.  But I am going to make either some iced tea or iced coffee and get out there now.  In 5 10 20 25 minutes.  Okay, maybe a half hour.

Oh wait, I could turn this on its head.  I will go out now and declutter.  I'll still procrastinate, because it's what I do.  But I'll procrastinate LATER.  Which means I'm procrastinating right now about procrastinating later.

I like that.  But it only works if I go off to declutter right now, which is what I'm doing...

I spend a great deal of time planning to declutter. With luck I'll be able to move from the planning stage to the pre-implementation stage. And from there to benefit analysis stage...

Oh wow you're good.  I bow to your expertise!

I'm glaring at my latest render... scowling even.

Why couldn't you be exactly like I intended? You're such a disappointment...

Now wait a minute!  Just hold your horses!  Jiminy Crickets!  Keep your shirt on!

Okay, now that I got all my mom's favorite sayings out of the way...

That render is really good!  The only thing I'd do is flip the image upside down.  And that's only because gravity should pull hair, and um, "boingy" body parts downward, not upward.  Re-examine the upper girl and you'll see what I mean.

But yeah, really good.

Complaint:  Last week I related a story about being trapped in the wilds of central NY State with an unremovable gas cap, requiring a truck mechanic with big muscles and an array of sequentially bigger tools that eventually succeeded in completely destroying the gas cap but effectively removing it from my filling spout.  Yay?  After the fortuitous purchasing of a proper gas cap from a miraculously open auto supply store on a Sunday, I was on my way home and no longer fretting about having to have my car towed 100 miles because I couldn't remove the $###$%# gas cap!

It's been a week and I've been on a couple mini-adventures and my gas tank needed filling again today (can you see what's coming?)  I drove east to the Indian reservation to get my cheap (no tax) gasoline and at the pump a young guy came out (they don't let customers pump their own gas) and I relayed the story of the gas cap to him and warned him to be careful about making sure it was being inserted correctly and to not cross-thread it or miss the alignment key slots.  So, after paying my bill inside the little store I returned to my car and drove off to have a most excellent lunch at Burger King 10 miles up the road.  As I got out of the car at BK I said to myself, "Self, you better check that gas cap!"  Sure enough, I could not for the life of me get that cap to unscrew.  Now purple with rage I fumed all during my Whopper meal and planned my speech to the kid who had screwed me (pun intended) again.  All sorts of mean things to say went through my mind but I finally decided on just driving in and asking him politely to remove my gas cap.  And when he would fail I would have said "Remember me asking you to not force my gas cap?  Did you think I was just some old fogey talking at you just to hear himself speak?"  But, perhaps fortunately, the same kid was not there and an older guy was attending the pumps now but I politely relayed the story, using twenty-seven 8x10 color, glossy, photographs with circles and arrows on them and singing in three part harmony to him about the gas cap saga.  This encouraged him so that with some effort he was able to finally get the cap off again and this time I watched him put it back on without having to force it.  If it comes off easily the next time then I can be assured that it is the way that people jam it on that buggers it up, not the cap itself.  Life is too short to be worrying about gas caps.

You seem technically/mechanically inclined, so I hesitate to mention this because some folks get annoyed when you suggest something they already know, but I also know you are kind and patient too... (okay, maybe... sort of... I think) but anyway... on some autolocomobiles, particularly ones made in the late 90s to early 00s, the gas caps have a stupid habit of failing. The gizmo inside that prevents you from over tightening the cap just falls apart... you probably noticed that the cap clicks and stops tightening after only a short twist, but will grab and start turning open in the other direction... Fords seem prone to having the (ratchet?) mechanism disintegrate making it spin in both directions resulting in a cap that is impossible to remove without 50 tools... Dodge/Chrysler seemed to have a flaw where the mechanism would freeze up resulting in a cap that could easily get stuck (not click, lock up)... and of course once you applied too much force, that would break resulting in an infernally spinning cap...

I think you said you have an early 00s Buick, and I’ve never helped anyone with a problem GM cap (other makes I’ve fixed though), but you might have some variation of that problem on your car... technically the cap on any late 80s to present vehicles should never be able to be over tightened because they all should have that feature where once it is sufficiently tight, the cap clicks and rotates without tightening. If it can be over tightened, it’s essentially broken and should be replaced...

You are right about this.  There's NO WAY to overtighten a gas cap.  Something else is messed up.  It's one of these:

• The car's vapor recirculation function isn't working correctly and now it's just sucking so hard the cap is just being held in place by vacuum.  I vote for this one.  If I'm right, expect it to cost a pretty penny.  Twice.  Once to fix it, and the second time to fix what the tech broke.
• The cap is wrong for the car.  (It should click when you tighten it enough)
• The car is wrong for the cap.  (Take this to mean whatever you want)

 I'd probably just sell the car and keep the gas cap.  You're probably better off. 

It was gas caps or me writing about that kangaroo again... so... I chose gas caps because I’m pretty sure everyone is sick of that story by now.

Please, not the kangaroo again!  Can't you have any nice friends who don't hop around carrying rolled up quarters in a sock? 

The kangaroo was not my friend, he is the one that robbed a liquor store... you are thinking of the surly drunken Penguin with the quarters.

In his defense he was going to the arcade when that incident occurred, so it’s just the grand theft auto thing that is really an issue with him... and in all honesty, can you blame him for taking a car that someone left running? In Penguinia, it’s a socialistic society where penguins share vehicles freely and leaving an unoccupied vehicle running is an open invitation to share. 

Decluttering today.  No, not decluttering.  Procrastinating about decluttering, that's what I'm really doing right now.  But I am going to make either some iced tea or iced coffee and get out there now.  In 5 10 20 25 minutes.  Okay, maybe a half hour.

Oh wait, I could turn this on its head.  I will go out now and declutter.  I'll still procrastinate, because it's what I do.  But I'll procrastinate LATER.  Which means I'm procrastinating right now about procrastinating later.

I like that.  But it only works if I go off to declutter right now, which is what I'm doing...

I spend a great deal of time planning to declutter. With luck I'll be able to move from the planning stage to the pre-implementation stage. And from there to benefit analysis stage...

Oh wow you're good.  I bow to your expertise!

I'm glaring at my latest render... scowling even.

Why couldn't you be exactly like I intended? You're such a disappointment...

Now wait a minute!  Just hold your horses!  Jiminy Crickets!  Keep your shirt on!

Okay, now that I got all my mom's favorite sayings out of the way...

That render is really good!  The only thing I'd do is flip the image upside down.  And that's only because gravity should pull hair, and um, "boingy" body parts downward, not upward.  Re-examine the upper girl and you'll see what I mean.

But yeah, really good.

Complaint:  Last week I related a story about being trapped in the wilds of central NY State with an unremovable gas cap, requiring a truck mechanic with big muscles and an array of sequentially bigger tools that eventually succeeded in completely destroying the gas cap but effectively removing it from my filling spout.  Yay?  After the fortuitous purchasing of a proper gas cap from a miraculously open auto supply store on a Sunday, I was on my way home and no longer fretting about having to have my car towed 100 miles because I couldn't remove the $###$%# gas cap!

It's been a week and I've been on a couple mini-adventures and my gas tank needed filling again today (can you see what's coming?)  I drove east to the Indian reservation to get my cheap (no tax) gasoline and at the pump a young guy came out (they don't let customers pump their own gas) and I relayed the story of the gas cap to him and warned him to be careful about making sure it was being inserted correctly and to not cross-thread it or miss the alignment key slots.  So, after paying my bill inside the little store I returned to my car and drove off to have a most excellent lunch at Burger King 10 miles up the road.  As I got out of the car at BK I said to myself, "Self, you better check that gas cap!"  Sure enough, I could not for the life of me get that cap to unscrew.  Now purple with rage I fumed all during my Whopper meal and planned my speech to the kid who had screwed me (pun intended) again.  All sorts of mean things to say went through my mind but I finally decided on just driving in and asking him politely to remove my gas cap.  And when he would fail I would have said "Remember me asking you to not force my gas cap?  Did you think I was just some old fogey talking at you just to hear himself speak?"  But, perhaps fortunately, the same kid was not there and an older guy was attending the pumps now but I politely relayed the story, using twenty-seven 8x10 color, glossy, photographs with circles and arrows on them and singing in three part harmony to him about the gas cap saga.  This encouraged him so that with some effort he was able to finally get the cap off again and this time I watched him put it back on without having to force it.  If it comes off easily the next time then I can be assured that it is the way that people jam it on that buggers it up, not the cap itself.  Life is too short to be worrying about gas caps.

You seem technically/mechanically inclined, so I hesitate to mention this because some folks get annoyed when you suggest something they already know, but I also know you are kind and patient too... (okay, maybe... sort of... I think) but anyway... on some autolocomobiles, particularly ones made in the late 90s to early 00s, the gas caps have a stupid habit of failing. The gizmo inside that prevents you from over tightening the cap just falls apart... you probably noticed that the cap clicks and stops tightening after only a short twist, but will grab and start turning open in the other direction... Fords seem prone to having the (ratchet?) mechanism disintegrate making it spin in both directions resulting in a cap that is impossible to remove without 50 tools... Dodge/Chrysler seemed to have a flaw where the mechanism would freeze up resulting in a cap that could easily get stuck (not click, lock up)... and of course once you applied too much force, that would break resulting in an infernally spinning cap...

I think you said you have an early 00s Buick, and I’ve never helped anyone with a problem GM cap (other makes I’ve fixed though), but you might have some variation of that problem on your car... technically the cap on any late 80s to present vehicles should never be able to be over tightened because they all should have that feature where once it is sufficiently tight, the cap clicks and rotates without tightening. If it can be over tightened, it’s essentially broken and should be replaced...

You are right about this.  There's NO WAY to overtighten a gas cap.  Something else is messed up.  It's one of these:

• The car's vapor recirculation function isn't working correctly and now it's just sucking so hard the cap is just being held in place by vacuum.  I vote for this one.  If I'm right, expect it to cost a pretty penny.  Twice.  Once to fix it, and the second time to fix what the tech broke.
• The cap is wrong for the car.  (It should click when you tighten it enough)
• The car is wrong for the cap.  (Take this to mean whatever you want)

 I'd probably just sell the car and keep the gas cap.  You're probably better off. 

It was gas caps or me writing about that kangaroo again... so... I chose gas caps because I’m pretty sure everyone is sick of that story by now.

Please, not the kangaroo again!  Can't you have any nice friends who don't hop around carrying rolled up quarters in a sock? 

Hello All,

I am in a situation in which I am doing two separate rendering locations on an island.  I have a set up scene on one end and initially I moved the entire island over the central spot where items spawn when selected.  The thing is now I cannot move the entire island for I didn't parent any of the new items I added to the island.  So naturally if I move it, some items well get left behind.  I am wondering if there is a way to move the grid over to a new location that I want to work on the island and thus create a new spawn point for items I want to put in that area. I do want to keep the first location intact in the event if it shows up in the background.

Thank you.

It might be easiest to put everything except the island into a group with Parent in place enabled, then parent the group to the island. You can select everything you want to put into the group, then create a new group. Depending on factors I haven't figured out, doing it this way may change the parent of items already parented to objects you are adding to the group. Another way is to create the group first, and then parent the other items to the group.

Theoretically, with everything now parented to the island via the Group, just move the island where you need it to be and everything in the group will follow. I admit to having issues with older items that didn't want to play nice with groups, though, so it's possible there will be one or two that need to be replaced.

Or you could save the scene and close it, and work on the next section in a new scene. Once you're happy with the second section, you can merge the two scenes. Or you can render the scene that will be in the background, and use it on a plane, or as a backdrop in the Environment tab.

You have many options to reach your end result.

Hello All,

I am in a situation in which I am doing two separate rendering locations on an island.  I have a set up scene on one end and initially I moved the entire island over the central spot where items spawn when selected.  The thing is now I cannot move the entire island for I didn't parent any of the new items I added to the island.  So naturally if I move it, some items well get left behind.  I am wondering if there is a way to move the grid over to a new location that I want to work on the island and thus create a new spawn point for items I want to put in that area. I do want to keep the first location intact in the event if it shows up in the background.

Thank you.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

Uncertainty makes me just buy less, not more, as I need time to think about if I can manage to get the funds for something I want to buy - and most often if I really want to buy anything at all. For me it's "if the sale ends before I can decide what I want and if I can pay for it, then DAZ showed me they don't want my money... and I didn't needed anything anyway at all..."

With a proper timer DAZ would probably make more money from me.

Yep. Thats how I deal with this nonsense.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

Uncertainty makes me just buy less, not more, as I need time to think about if I can manage to get the funds for something I want to buy - and most often if I really want to buy anything at all. For me it's "if the sale ends before I can decide what I want and if I can pay for it, then DAZ showed me they don't want my money... and I didn't needed anything anyway at all..."

With a proper timer DAZ would probably make more money from me.

Complaint:  Last week I related a story about being trapped in the wilds of central NY State with an unremovable gas cap, requiring a truck mechanic with big muscles and an array of sequentially bigger tools that eventually succeeded in completely destroying the gas cap but effectively removing it from my filling spout.  Yay?  After the fortuitous purchasing of a proper gas cap from a miraculously open auto supply store on a Sunday, I was on my way home and no longer fretting about having to have my car towed 100 miles because I couldn't remove the $###$%# gas cap!

It's been a week and I've been on a couple mini-adventures and my gas tank needed filling again today (can you see what's coming?)  I drove east to the Indian reservation to get my cheap (no tax) gasoline and at the pump a young guy came out (they don't let customers pump their own gas) and I relayed the story of the gas cap to him and warned him to be careful about making sure it was being inserted correctly and to not cross-thread it or miss the alignment key slots.  So, after paying my bill inside the little store I returned to my car and drove off to have a most excellent lunch at Burger King 10 miles up the road.  As I got out of the car at BK I said to myself, "Self, you better check that gas cap!"  Sure enough, I could not for the life of me get that cap to unscrew.  Now purple with rage I fumed all during my Whopper meal and planned my speech to the kid who had screwed me (pun intended) again.  All sorts of mean things to say went through my mind but I finally decided on just driving in and asking him politely to remove my gas cap.  And when he would fail I would have said "Remember me asking you to not force my gas cap?  Did you think I was just some old fogey talking at you just to hear himself speak?"  But, perhaps fortunately, the same kid was not there and an older guy was attending the pumps now but I politely relayed the story, using twenty-seven 8x10 color, glossy, photographs with circles and arrows on them and singing in three part harmony to him about the gas cap saga.  This encouraged him so that with some effort he was able to finally get the cap off again and this time I watched him put it back on without having to force it.  If it comes off easily the next time then I can be assured that it is the way that people jam it on that buggers it up, not the cap itself.  Life is too short to be worrying about gas caps.

You seem technically/mechanically inclined, so I hesitate to mention this because some folks get annoyed when you suggest something they already know, but I also know you are kind and patient too... (okay, maybe... sort of... I think) but anyway... on some autolocomobiles, particularly ones made in the late 90s to early 00s, the gas caps have a stupid habit of failing. The gizmo inside that prevents you from over tightening the cap just falls apart... you probably noticed that the cap clicks and stops tightening after only a short twist, but will grab and start turning open in the other direction... Fords seem prone to having the (ratchet?) mechanism disintegrate making it spin in both directions resulting in a cap that is impossible to remove without 50 tools... Dodge/Chrysler seemed to have a flaw where the mechanism would freeze up resulting in a cap that could easily get stuck (not click, lock up)... and of course once you applied too much force, that would break resulting in an infernally spinning cap...

I think you said you have an early 00s Buick, and I’ve never helped anyone with a problem GM cap (other makes I’ve fixed though), but you might have some variation of that problem on your car... technically the cap on any late 80s to present vehicles should never be able to be over tightened because they all should have that feature where once it is sufficiently tight, the cap clicks and rotates without tightening. If it can be over tightened, it’s essentially broken and should be replaced...

I don’t remember what exact model you have, but a good online price for a 2004 Buick LeSabre ranges from $25 - $55... Amazon has one for $11, but the hell I’d trust that to work with the tank’s sensors... I’m not 100% sure, but gas caps might be universal... a few years back my friend’s old Ford F-150’s cap broke and I gave him a crappy old Toyota cap that worked for two weeks with no problems until a replacement arrived (well the filler door didn’t close perfectly). Don’t get a “universal” cap... I’m sure as an engineer you are familiar with “universal” fit... it universally fits nothing.  The real problem with cheap caps or wrong caps is bad caps can trigger tank sensors on some cars that result in a “Check Engine” light going on that usually requires a trip to the mechanic to be reset (although some vehicles “fix” the problem on their own if the cap is replaced with a proper or new unit).

Pep Boys, Advance Auto Parts or Auto Zone should either carry the replacement cap or order it for you (or you can order it online)... the only difficulty in replacing a cap is the plastic rivet that holds the cap leash... Some of the auto parts places over here will do something like that for free or a minimum charge because it’s so easy... but it’s generally easy to break off the old rivet and pop in the new one.

I figure you know all this stuff, but just in case you are unaware, forgot or didn’t care to think about it until now, I figured I’d mention it... also I was bored and sitting in front of the air conditioner (which is a highly underrated machine in modern society), so I figured why not write a 10,000 word essay on gas caps... 

It was gas caps or me writing about that kangaroo again... so... I chose gas caps because I’m pretty sure everyone is sick of that story by now.

Complaint:  Last week I related a story about being trapped in the wilds of central NY State with an unremovable gas cap, requiring a truck mechanic with big muscles and an array of sequentially bigger tools that eventually succeeded in completely destroying the gas cap but effectively removing it from my filling spout.  Yay?  After the fortuitous purchasing of a proper gas cap from a miraculously open auto supply store on a Sunday, I was on my way home and no longer fretting about having to have my car towed 100 miles because I couldn't remove the $###$%# gas cap!

It's been a week and I've been on a couple mini-adventures and my gas tank needed filling again today (can you see what's coming?)  I drove east to the Indian reservation to get my cheap (no tax) gasoline and at the pump a young guy came out (they don't let customers pump their own gas) and I relayed the story of the gas cap to him and warned him to be careful about making sure it was being inserted correctly and to not cross-thread it or miss the alignment key slots.  So, I watched him easily remove the gas cap that I had last installed a week ago then after paying my bill inside the little store I returned to my car and drove off to have a most excellent lunch at Burger King 10 miles up the road.  As I got out of the car at BK I said to myself, "Self, you better check that gas cap!"  Sure enough, I could not for the life of me get that cap to unscrew.  Now purple with rage I fumed all during my Whopper meal and planned my speech to the kid who had screwed me (pun intended) again.  All sorts of mean things to say went through my mind but I finally decided on just driving in and asking him politely to remove my gas cap.  And when he would fail I would have said "Remember me asking you to not force my gas cap?  Did you think I was just some old fogey talking at you just to hear himself speak?"  But, perhaps fortunately, the same kid was not there and an older guy was attending the pumps now but I politely relayed the story, using twenty-seven 8x10 color, glossy, photographs with circles and arrows on them and singing in three part harmony to him about the gas cap saga.  This encouraged him so that with some effort he was able to finally get the cap off again and this time I watched him put it back on without having to force it.  If it comes off easily the next time then I can be assured that it is the way that people jam it on that buggers it up, not the cap itself.  Life is too short to be worrying about gas caps.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

I disagree.  If there is a sale going on at "that other content site" (where they helpfully post a countdown timer for sale items), I can budget "real life" expenses around the sale date. (Like, "I can skip Starbuck's tomorrow and get that lights set instead.") And it's not like we don't know that "flash" sales go fast (make up your mind fast or you miss it) and that pretty much all other sales tick past at midnight DAZ time according to the order of the sale banners on the store website.  I can say with absolute certainty that DAZ has lost money from me as a result of their unposted end-of-sale times. If an item falls off the sale while in my cart, I'm going to remember how much I could have saved, if only I'd known I should postpone answering my phone or having a 3-minute conversation until AFTER I clicked through the payment method screen and I won't be buying it again until it hits that price point.

They should, but they won't.  Uncertainly is central to the customer psychology of the marketing playbook they follow.  Keep us guessing, make us panic that we might miss the discount, so we don't stop and think long enough to decide to pass.

Hey all, 

I've been working with Daz for sometime now with no issues. My desktop is a newer rig (specs below). After purchasing, downloading, and installing quite a bit of content today, I noticed that loading Ryker for Genesis 8 was taking an unusual amount of time; probably 30 or 40 seconds. Applying materials was taking equally as long. At times, the app would be become unresponsive and crash. Additionally, when I decided to work on a different character I've developed, I noticed when I attempted to load content, I'm getting messages that the content needed is not installed (human mat for Katarya elf). 

I decided to uninstall and reinstall studio; no changes. I checked my windows updates, drivers, and they are all up-to-date. I checked my internet connection, which is stable. 

Any thoughts or ideas on what the seemingly sudden glitch might be? 

Any help is greatly appreciated. 

(Specs below.) 

Best, 

Jason 

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Home

Version 10.0.17763 Build 17763

Other OS Description Not Available

OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation

System Name DESKTOP-FSS75I7

System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.

System Type x64-based PC

System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9900K CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3600 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.40, 10/12/2018

SMBIOS Version 3.1

Embedded Controller Version 255.255

BIOS Mode UEFI

BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock

BaseBoard Product Z390 Pro4

BaseBoard Version

Platform Role Desktop

Secure Boot State Off

PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible

Windows Directory C:\windows

System Directory C:\windows\system32

Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2

Locale United States

Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.17763.529"

User Name DESKTOP-FSS75I7\Jason

Time Zone Central Daylight Time

Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 8.00 GB

Total Physical Memory 7.92 GB

Available Physical Memory 5.33 GB

Total Virtual Memory 14.4 GB

Available Virtual Memory 9.13 GB

Page File Space 6.50 GB

Page File C:\pagefile.sys

Kernel DMA Protection Off

Virtualization-based security Not enabled

Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not InstantGo, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable

Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes

Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes

Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Ye

don't forget Carrara.  

currently my book covers were done with poser,
updating with carrara renders.

creating bookcovers with DS was confusing to me, there is no where to set dpi for printing.
the printer requires 300 dpi graphics. cover is 5.25 x8, the binding side is odd pixels, bleed area.  woes.

I realize bumping this after 2.5 years is a bit...inane...but I realized as I was perusing this thread that no one had ever mentioned a response to you.  I've rendered in DAZ for print by simply making my resolution match whatever the 300 dpi equivalent would be, then resizing the image in Photoshop to actually BE print resolution.
As an example, your cover is 5.25x8...at 300 dpi, that'd be 1575 pixels x 2400 pixels.  If you render at those dimensions in DAZ, you'd get a render that is that size in pixels, but at 96 dpi.  That could then be resized in Photoshop (or an equivalent), by changing the Image Size in PS to 300 dpi, then telling the software to keep the width and height at 1575x2400.  Play around with the different sampling options in the resize window to get the best results for your desired output.

If you need to add bleed, it'd be an additional 1/8", or 75 pixels added to both height and width of your document.  That would give you 1/8" of extra render at each edge, just make sure that you keep your image focal point somewhat central, so you don't cut off anything important.  ;-)

This could also be done in GIMP, though I don't know that software well enough to explain the process, or which menu options you'd use.

Hope this (very) delayed response was helpful...or at least, not condescending and irrelevant. 

Have a great day!